"I don’t know the words to use. I don’t know how to make you. Oh, Mrs. Geraldine, I can only just beg and pray to you to take him!" "My dear, I’ll help you, if I can. I’ll be glad to lend you money, or help you in any other way." "No--I can’t keep him. You see, Mrs. Geraldine, I’m going to marry Eddie, and I can’t ever let him know about this." "Angelica!" cried Polly, aghast. "I certainly won’t help you to deceive Eddie." "I know; but it would be much, much worse to tell him. He’s crazy about me, and I can make him happy. This is the only wrong thing I’ve ever done, _ever_, and I’m never going to do another. I’m going to be good as gold, Mrs. Geraldine. If Eddie knew, he’d never forgive me. I’d never get a chance to be good. That’s why I came to you. On account of Eddie, won’t you do it to make him happy?" "I could _not_ deceive Eddie." "Oh, _why_ not? Why, for Gawd’s sake, tell the truth and spoil Eddie’s life, and be the death of this poor little feller and the ruin of me? Oh, just take him! Take him!" she cried, tears running down her cheeks. "You’ll love him. You’ll be awful glad to feel him next to you in bed, first thing in the morning. You’ll love him so. You’re the only one I know in the world that I wouldn’t mind leaving him with. I know he cries an awful lot, but that’s because he’s sick; and if you take him, and he has the best of everything, he’ll soon be fat and well, and you’ll be proud of him. Oh, say you will!" Tears stood in Polly’s eyes. "My dear, you mustn’t give up your child. I’ll help you, so that you can keep him." "No, no! I can’t! I’m going to marry Eddie." "Give up the idea. Go off somewhere and live quietly with your dear little baby." "No! You can’t support me and him both. It would just be me and mommer over again--me going out by the day to keep him alive, and the two of us having nothing--no chances, no nothing. That’s if he’d even live. No; the only, only thing is for you to take him." "But, Angelica, what in the world would I do with him?" "Get a good nurse. I’ll find one, if you want, from a hospital." "But what would people say?" "Say he’s yours. No one would know the difference. Tell Eddie he’s yours. Tell Vincent, too." "Vincent wouldn’t believe it." "Well, he could say so, anyway. My Gawd, that’s little enough to do for the poor little feller!" "It’s not a little thing, Angelica--it’s a great deal, to expect Vincent to say he is your child’s father." "Well, he is!" said Angelica. "I forgot to tell you that." CHAPTER SIX I "It seems to be my fate," said Polly to herself, "to be always forgiving and benefiting those that despitefully use me. Imagine me taking this child--Vincent’s child--and not feeling the least resentment toward Angelica. I’m only sorry for her." She was watching the baby lying on the lap of a lively and capable young nurse, whom she had got by telephone. "I’m going to adopt this child," she had explained to the young woman. "His mother can’t keep him."